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In the lead up to the Christmas period, this selection ofseasonal multisensory learning opportunities will captureyour children’s imagination, says Kirstine Beeley...

Ihave to admit to being one of thosepractitioners who absolutely lovesChristmas. I’m worse than the childrenwhen it comes to getting excited.However, I do believe that just because

it’s the festive season that doesn’t mean youhave to forget all your child-led principles. Itdoes astound me that we work so hard allyear to provide exciting, inviting invitations to play, and then for a few weeks seem toforget all that we know is right as we planadult-led activity after adult-led activity...

So, I hope here to renew your enthusiasmfor Christmas and give you some ideas ofhow to provide a good mix of both child- and adult-led activities right up to the big day...

is added and feels cold to the touch. It’s great for sensory play or as a base for snowy small world play. Try freezing a couple of water-filled balloonsand put them together to make a snowmanto go in your snow. The children love seeinghow the snowman slowly melts away duringthe day (especially if you call him Olaf!).

Another oldie but a goody for smallfingers is paper snowflakes. As children snip their designs, they give their handmuscles a great workout and build finemotor skills. Remember snipping is aprecursor to being able to cut properly with scissors

Try freezing red water beads for a realholly berry ice exploration. Put them in a trayand let the children investigate as they startto melt. Add green paper holly leaves if youwant to make it more festive and watchwhat happens when the paper gets wet asthe berries melt, use tissue paper or crepepaper and the colour will bleed out as thebeads start to melt.

Adventactivities

Get the senses workingChristmas is a time that’s associated with lots of different scents and these can beintegrated into many aspects of yourprovision. Try adding Christmas spices such as cinnamon, pine, nutmeg, cloves and cranberry to paint as a multisensorycreative experience. You can even trypainting with ground spices mixed with a small amount of water; you get a lovely array of autumnal colours.

Try making Christmas scented play-dough.Cinnamon play-dough smells great and isgood for making pretend gingerbread men;red cranberry-scented play-dough andpeppermint- or pine-scented green give lots more festive play options. You can even colour rice red, gold and green andadd Christmas scents for lots of scoopingand pouring activities. Add bows, tinsel, jingle bells and decorations for addedsensory interest.

Outside, don’t forget to add Christmasspices to your mud kitchen for lots ofmultisensory outdoor play – you can even add cranberries and pine needles.

For children who aren’t so keen on wetmessy play, try filling a tray with lamentastrips (the long tinselly strips that you hangfrom your tree) and tinsel. Add bells, bows,Christmas decorations or numbers andletters for children to find within the tinsel(remember to chop up tinsel so it’s not longenough to cause a hazard). Sparkly lettersand numbers are great for this. Buildcoordination and fine motor skills further byweaving with ribbon and tinsel.

Frozen fun and gamesNo British Christmas would be completewithout talk of snow and there are lots ofopen-ended activities that involve snow-based play. Try exploring real snow in a tray if it happens to be around, or invest in someinstant snow powder (available online): itexpands to 100 times its volume when water

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Christmasspecial

Just because it’sthe festive seasonthat doesn’t meanyou have to forgetall your child-led

principles

abouttheauthorKirstine Beeley is an author, preschool

manager and educational consultant

working with settings and local

authorities across the UK – visit

pinterest.com/kirstinebeeley

Socks, stockings and sacksTry adding a variety of socks (Christmasstockings) of different colours and sizes toyour sand, rice or mud play. Children lovefilling them and talking about what happenswhen they get heavier, longer and soggier!Can you make a really heavy one or an extra long one? With all the soggy, socks and sand, don’t miss an opportunity forsome ‘s’-based phonics talk as well!

Use a selection of Christmas stockingsfilled with a variety of different materials(shells, pasta, rice, cotton wool, Lego, etc.).Place an elastic band around their tops or tie knots to stop the contents coming out.See if children can guess the contents bytheir sense of touch. Make up picture cardsof the possible contents to allow children to match their guesses to the stockings.

Try pegging stockings to a washing line.Add numbers and encourage children to fill the stockings with the right number ofobjects. Use Christmas bows, jingle bells, pine cones and cotton wool snowballs if you want to stick to the Christmassy theme.

Invest in a large Santa sack and fill it with puppets and other objects relating toChristmas songs and use it as a festive songsack. Pull out an object and see if childrencan guess which song it relates to, then singit together. Once children are familiar withthe sack’s contents, they will love exploring

it independently or with friends. Alternatively,fill a Santa sack with objects and puppetsand encourage children to make up storieswith the objects that they find. Change theobjects regularly to keep the interest going.

All wrapped up Home corner role-play is, according to the Characteristics of Effective Learning,supposed to reflect what children see in their everyday lives. So add a tree and a box of decorations and let the children playat decorating and un-decorating the tree.Adding battery-powered fairy lights makes it even more exciting (and safe). Remember,this is a play tree, so don’t get precious about how it looks.

Introduce boxes wrapped in Christmaspaper. Use different sizes and shapes, and fill with building blocks and other objects to create different weights and sounds.Encourage children to explore, talk aboutand sort the parcels. Try wrapping strange-shaped objects such as teddy bears, carsand toys to see if children can guess whatthey are. Provide children with supplies of wrapping paper, scissors and Sellotape to encourage their own wrapping – again, great for physical development.

One great activity for getting childrentalking involves wrapping a big cardboardbox (the bigger the better), then decorating it to make it look really inviting. Don’t allowchildren to touch it but encourage them tocome up with ideas about what could be inthe box, which Santa has left in your setting.Keep it going all day – you’ll be surprised at how creative children can be with theirsuggestions and their reasoning. At the end of the day, open the box and showchildren that there is nothing in it but theirimagination. Ask them to think what theywould put in a box if they could. A greattalking point!

Jingle bells and bows Jingle bells can be purchased in an array of colours and sizes. A bowl of bells is anexciting invitation to play in itself, but addsugar/ice tongs and some small buckets or bowls, and the possibilities for sorting and counting, plus fine motor development,are endless.

Try adding large jingle bells to a paper-covered tea tray. Drizzle paint on the paperand roll the bells around to make a patternwhilst building coordination and listening to the sound!

Or how about trying some large-scalephysical painting? Place an old sock in thebottom of a stocking and tie a knot to keep it there. Soak the sock end in red paint. Nowbounce the stocking at a large, floor-basedpiece of paper (like bouncing a yo-yo) tomake huge red splats. Try using pens,crayons and googly eyes to see if you canmake red-nosed reindeers around yourprints – you can even find twigs to place on the paper to look like antlers! – or trydipping cotton wool snowballs in paint and throwing them at paper (again, a great gross motor activity).

Add Christmas bows or cotton ballsnowballs to the centre of a small parachutefor some cooperative physical play as youbounce them around trying to keep them on the parachute.

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